About Us

Welcome to the online home of the North American Karate Federation (NAKF) and the North American Collegiate Karate Conference (NACKC). We aim to keep the spirit of Tabata-Ha Shotokan Karate-Do alive well into the future as the sole representatives of the legacy of Master Kazumi Tabata and his karate. The NAKF is a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible non-profit organization, founded by Shihan Tabata.

Sensei Kazumi Tabata came to the United States from Japan in the late 1960’s and soon had a large network of affiliated privately run dojos and college clubs in the Northeast US and Bermuda. Over the decades, thousands of students have trained hard, made friends, and had experiences unavailable anywhere else through the practice of traditional Shotokan Karate the Tabata way. While Shihan Tabata passed in 2020, the NAKF and NACKC continue on. We still provide instruction and belt ranking. We have also expanded our role to facilitate inter-organizational training and belt ranking in the spirit of building character through the practice of Karate-Do – the way Sensei Tabata taught us.

The current Board of Directors of the NAKF/NACKC consists of:

Gregory Cumings, President

Roger Trimm, Chief Instructor

Jordan Berry, Chief Instructor

Oscar Lightbourne, Vice President

Avril Kenney, Treasurer

Chesley Chen, Alumni Relations

Message from Greg, Nov. 27, 2021: “While Sensei’s passing poses a clearly difficult and challenging time in the organization’s history, I am looking forward to what the future holds. It’s been a long time and a lot of life experience since I first walked in to that YMCA in Woburn, MA to train with Tom Shea’s NAKF club back in 1977. It was then on to Boston University’s NECKC Shotokan Karate Club where my older brother Butch had also studied and trained. Since that time, Sensei Tabata and the NAKF have given me innumerable training opportunities both here at home and all around the world, including several years resident and training in Japan. I intend to help another generation of students have some of the same opportunities I had. The future continues to look bright!”

Contact us by emailing greg@nackc.us.

More about Master Kazumi Tabata:

-Read the cover feature from the October 2006 issue of Shotokan Karate Magazine honoring Master Tabata, here.

-Read the profile of Master Tabata that appeared in the January 1978 edition of Karate Illustrated, here.

-Read the feature article about Master Tabata that appeared in Martial Arts Masters Magazine, January 1994, here.